Day thirty of the writing streak
Today is day thirty of my writing streak. I would never have expected for it to go so long when I set myself a one-week-challenge a month ago. But here we are today, thirty days in, and I don’t have the intention to stop any time soon.
As you have probably noticed if you read any of my last posts, I’m pretty excited at the idea of reaching the end of my first draft, which I have the feeling will be happening any day now. You may also have noticed me saying that I have absolutely no idea how I will have to proceed once I do finish, and how I am a little worried about being able to make any sense out of my messy discovery draft.
Even though I’m not quite there yet – but almost 😃 – I couldn’t help myself but do some research for tips on what I should do once my first draft is completed, and it turns out that the first thing anyone should apparently do when reaching that point, is to set the draft aside and look at it for a couple of weeks to a month. This is supposed to help you come back to it with fresh eyes and a fresh mind, which is supposed to help you see things clearer when the time comes to work on the next draft.
Although the idea of intentionally setting this story aside for so long after having spent months and years with it and its characters constantly present in my mind feels very hard to do, which is why I thought that I’ll probably have to work on another project during that time, to distract me until the time comes for me to work on the next draft.
I guess you might be wondering why I’m talking about all of this if I haven’t even completed the first draft, and that I should focus on the current stage of the novel before already planning out all the next steps. And you would be right, which is why I hadn’t written about any of this until today, even though it’s been occupying a little space of my brain for a while now. The reason why I mention it today is because while I was out on my morning run, instead of working through questions and story beats for my current work in progress, I suddenly had an idea for a completely different plot pop in my head out of nowhere. The more the run went on, the more excited I got about it, to the point that when I came home, sweaty, tired, and thirsty, all I wanted to do was to get my laptop and write it down before I forgot.
I ended up not writing right away, prioritizing my immediate after-run needs, but then I finally got my laptop, opened a new Scrivener document, and started typing the plot structure for this new story.
I was so excited about it that I must have written a little over 2.000 words for it. In the end I did my best to force myself and keep it at the “strict minimum”, reminding myself that I do already have a work-in-progress manuscript I should be working on instead, and that I could return to the new story idea once the first draft of the work-in-progress manuscript was done. So that’s what I did, after writing the overview of the plot for my new story idea, I went back to working on my current draft, and let me tell you that it was not easy because my head was really excited about the new idea of the morning.
There’s so much I would like to tell you about this new story idea, and about how the way it shaped in my head is so different to how the idea for my current work-in-progress manuscript came to me. But I’m conscious that part of this excitement I’m feeling is the typical attraction to the “shiny new object” which wants to distract me from the nearly completed first draft of my “already well-worn object” and the fear of actually finishing it. Because yes, for all the excitement I feel about finishing this first draft, I’m also really afraid of it, mainly because I’m afraid that I’ll read over it all and think that it’s no good at all and that I just spent years of my life focusing on an idea that is never meant to be.
I know that’s just fear talking, and that many writers feel like this at this stage of their work, which is why I’m doing my best not to let the negative thoughts win, and to not let myself get distracted by the new idea. Its time will come eventually, and when it does, I’ll tell you all about it.
Until then, I still have a first draft to finish!